That's the precise argument I'm refuting with the 1930s analogy - not that people today look to the past, but that people in the past had a lot less reason to be optimistic about the future. Again, think 1930s in rural central Ukraine - you've had a relatively okay life, but now uncle Stalin has re-instituted serfdom, this time under the auspices of a totalitarian state (itself a terrifying bleeding-edge invention in the 1930s). Your friends, neighbours and relatives are dropping dead all around you, there's rampant cannibalism, for god's sake. What possible hope is there for the future? Birthrates didn't fall.

Just one example of many. This "vibes about future" argument ought to make no sense whatsoever to anyone who is a fan of history, particularly the daily-life-in-the-age-of kind, not the battles-and-dates kind.